


The Call of Avalon (take me home)

by emptysock



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Bestiality, Knotting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-10
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:29:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptysock/pseuds/emptysock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-mortem, after Camlann. <i>Take me back to the start.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Call of Avalon (take me home)

He quickly lost all sense of the passage of time under the unchanging sky with its lowering clouds heavy with rain that never came. Waiting, with only short, pained breaks to drag himself away to relieve himself. The crumbling old well in the ruined courtyard still held some water -- brackish and faintly discoloured; he tried not to think too hard about it as he drank to ease the hollow ache in his stomach and washed himself as well as he could, grateful that he had at least that much. Even so, he was starting to smell unpleasantly of soured sweat, old blood and the stagnant water, and faintly, of sickness.

He had no memory of how he came to be in this desolate place, this long-abandoned keep, only that he had been in battle, and then struck down, grievously wounded. And yet here he was, alive, more or less. Perhaps this was some kind of purgatory for his crimes, whatever they were.

Who was he? He had woken with fine enough armour and a startlingly bright, well-balanced sword, not that either had done him any good that he could tell. Sensible but well-made clothes of good material. He had struggled to pull off the armour and placed the pieces on the first thing he remembered removing to set aside - a cloak of deep red. His build was broad, strong, with a haggard leanness that said he'd been unwell, or unhappy. The dim, wavering reflection in the well told him that his features beneath his cap of lightly silvered fair hair were strong and sharply drawn, handsome. He tried a smile, but it did not fit the lines on his face. And all of these meant nothing to him.

There was a stone pedestal in the centre of the courtyard, or an altar, with darkened tracks running along the edges. Once, he'd dragged himself on top and spread his arms wide, expecting, hoping, for something, anything at all to happen, but the rough, cold stone hurt his back and made his wounds ache even worse, and he'd given up and let himself roll over and fall back to the ground.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Not even a wind.

Then something moved, in the distance. He caught his breath and scanned the shadows of the crumbling stones and invading green for another glimpse of movement. It eluded his desperate search for a while, then it moved again, into a rare sliver of pale light breaking through the dull grey clouds.

Brindled grey and tawny brown, a scrawny, ragged form fading into the backdrop of broken stone and dirt, golden eyes. A wolf, thin and alone, hungry. He felt surprisingly unperturbed by the knowledge of such a creature so near. Perhaps it would kill him and end this. Perhaps in this mystical place, it was a messenger or omen. Perhaps it was someone he knew.

The last thought struck him with a sense of rightness, and he set aside the sword he'd reached for on instinct when he'd seen the movement. He tried to lean back on his elbows, but then his wounds broke open afresh when he turned, and he hissed and clutched at the biggest wound in his stomach.

The wolf stood there and watched him. He drew in deep, even breaths, bracing himself for whatever it decided to do. "So you have come. Well, what now?" he asked, just to break the unremitting silence.

It lowered its head and tail and whined, slinking towards him like a beaten dog. He held out his unbloodied hand to it and it sniffed at him, sending warm, wuffling puffs of air into his palm. It nosed him gently, then continued sniffing up his arm to his body, and touched its cold, wet nose to his other hand, clasped over his stomach wound. He tensed.

It looked up at him with, he thought, intelligent golden eyes, and whined again. He managed a short, shallow laugh without too much pain. "Don't suppose you can do anything about that, you useless beast. What do you want?"

The wolf pushed its nose between his fingers and licked at the torn edge of the wound, and he gasped at the odd tingling sensation, warm and cool at the same time. It licked again, and it felt, _different_. He lifted his hand from the wound and watched it bend and lick insistently at the bloody flesh, and watched the rough edges seal together and mend as the blood was cleaned away.

"What, _who_ are you?" he breathed. It paused in its licking and cocked its head at him, jaws hanging open in an outrageous wolfish grin, then set to again.

When it finished with his stomach, it tried to push its whiskery muzzle up his shirt to reach the shallow graze on his chest, and he choked with ticklish laughter and shoved the bristly head away. "Hang on, let me get this off," he told it and carefully peeled off his filthy shirt, throwing it aside as the wolf dove in again and lapped eagerly all over his chest.

"You're ridiculous, you know that?" he said as the wet tongue swiped over a nipple and the wolf reared back a little, as though surprised, and licked it again, experimentally. He slapped the top of its head and it growled at him, looking offended and annoyed, and went back to cleaning his wounds, moving on to a fresher graze on his right elbow where he had caught it on a rock when he rolled off the altar. 

Done, they stared at each other, at a loss. He cleared his throat. "I don't suppose you could get me something to eat as well? You don't look capable of feeding yourself," he noted, nodding at its protruding ribs.

The wolf laid back its ears, circled around and came back to sniff at his scraped knees, whining. "These too? I'm beginning to suspect you of ulterior motives, you filthy beast," he sighed, but worked his stiff, stained breeches down his hips and off his legs as well. "There you go, happy?" The wolf grinned at him and boldly advanced, soothing away the last hurts on his knees, then following a thin, curving slice along his thigh, freezing when he tensed and drew in a sharp breath.

Hot, flat tongue still pressed over the tender skin on the inside of his thigh, nose close enough to the curling thatch of hair in his groin that he thought he could feel the faint stirring of its breath on his quiescent prick, the wolf met his stare with bright, clear eyes. He felt his heartbeat quicken with fear and excitement, at the tangled, conflicting feelings of wrongness, the faint tug of curiosity, a desire for some sort of contact with something warm and living and friendly, and under it all, the nagging sense that he knew this wolf somehow.

Slowly, he raised his hands and let them sink into the thick, rough fur of its ruff, feeling the racing pulse in the thin neck, then examining the shape of its skull, the softness of its ears while it watched him patiently. He pressed its head down, pushing its cheek against his thigh, then let go, and waited, feeling himself harden while he thought about the warmth and closeness, and tried to imagine how it might continue with its ministrations. 

It rested there, still and trusting on his lap, waiting for his next move. At length, he said, "All right. Go on."

The wolf growled, low and deep in its throat, and nudged his thigh again, licked its way up the fading scratch to the join of leg to body, snuffling its way to his hipbone and down again, while he watched in distantly horrified fascination; and it finally buried its nose in the rough curls at his crotch. He felt his balls retract tightly in response, and drew up his legs as well, felt cool air reach the sweaty innermost parts of his privates, and the hot puffs of air on the sensitive skin, and closed his eyes at the first, tentative touch of tongue to his hole.

Then the wolf began laving him in earnest, sloppy, wet tongue licking all around his balls and pressing into his hole, and occasionally swiping lightly over part of his hard, swollen prick, and he lay back and shut his eyes and let it happen, raising and spreading his knees to give it better access. He heard a whimper, not the wolf's, and when it stepped stiffly forward over him, he twisted around to brace himself on his elbows and knees, and it covered him, soft belly settling warm and heavy over his back and buttocks.

Paws scrabbled briefly at his sides until they were clasped around his waist, teeth closed gently over the back of his neck, and something hot and slick and slender pushed into him and pumped rapidly, fever-hot spurts inside him easing the way as it rutted hard into him, too fast for comfort or relief. He buried his face in his arms and whimpered again while it alternately licked at his ear and mouthed his neck and shoulders, rutting into him until something swelled hard and huge at his hole and shoved _in_ , and then the thrusts slowed. The hard knot in his arse kept swelling larger and larger, stretching him inside to an impossible extent, pressing relentlessly on an unbearably sensitive spot inside him that tingled all the way up to the tip of his prick while hot little spurts continued to spill inside him. Too big, too hard, too much. He reached back and grasped the thin, furred haunch, pulling it against his leg for the warm contact, felt tiny dribbles escape his prick with every push of the wolf's warm, thickly-furred body against his back, and his whimpers turned into a groan of mingled pain and desperate, unfulfilled need.

It stopped thrusting, stopped swelling, and simply held him while he adjusted to the stretched, full sensation and the continual, erratic hot spurts, and as the ache eased, he rocked back on it, experimentally. It felt, it felt... 

The wolf whined, and he gulped air and kept rocking against the hard knot inside him while it continued to fill him with its too-hot come, closed his eyes, feeling the knot rub against that strange, maddening spot inside him. He groped blindly for his own dripping prick and fisted it while clenching down on the wolf's knot, and came so hard his vision went completely white and he collapsed on his belly, bringing the wolf down with him.

They lay together, resting, as the hot pulses inside him slowed and the aching sense of fullness in him slowly receded. He stroked the rough fur on the thin forelegs at his waist, patiently waiting until the wolf's prick slipped from his body in a sloppy gush of come, then turned around in its embrace to press his cheek against the top of its head and pet the thin neck and bony shoulders. The wolf sighed and withdrew from his arms to turn around and lap up the come leaking from his raw, reddened hole until he clenched up tight again, holding in the rest of the come, before it crawled back up to lick his hands and neck and face while he held it and shook in belated reaction.

It made a grumbly noise into his neck and shivered all over as he buried his hands in the thick fur and tugged at it. The loose skin shifted over the strong, lean body.

He took a harder look and saw, his hands - they looked different, smoother, less scarred. Familiar, in a way they hadn't been when he first woke here. He tugged at the fur again, and the pelt came free from a man's pale shoulder, which reminded him...

"You," he said, slapped the shoulder hard and dragged the wolf up by one human arm and one lupine one, kissed its mouth, licking at its sharp teeth while it whined in confusion and twisted in his grip, and yanked it back towards him. "Merlin. You idiot."

It whined and tried to turn its face away. 

He let it go, lunged for his abandoned red cloak and ripped a ragged scrap from it and scrambled forward, throwing it about the wolf's neck and tying it off in a knot, fixing that remembered image in its flesh, and seized the wolf again, clutching it in a tight, despairing embrace. 

"Merlin," he said again, and the wolf ceased its struggles, going limp as something like understanding dawned in its eyes. He turned to press his lips to the wolf's again, tugged the whiskery skin away from the mouth to reach the human lips underneath, and kept kissing the revealed mouth as he pulled more and more of the wolf-skin away, and held on until he had all of the man back.

The man who had been a wolf blinked, blinked again and stared at him, confusion and dazed wonder receding to recognition at last. "Arthur." Merlin touched a hand to his face, amazed, and yes, his name was Arthur, and Merlin said, "I've been searching for you so long," and he laughed, and the rain began to fall.

**Author's Note:**

> This work also posted to: http://emptysock.livejournal.com/1002.html


End file.
